September 13, 2017

Caltech researchers have developed a “Fantastic Voyage” style prototype microchip that could one day be used in “smart pills” to diagnose and treat diseases when inserted into the human body.

Called ATOMS (addressable transmitters operated as magnetic spins), the microchips could one day monitor a patient’s gastrointestinal tract, blood, or brain, measuring factors that indicate a patient’s health — such as pH, temperature, pressure, and sugar concentrations — with… read more

September 8, 2017

A radical software invention by three Caltech engineers promises to allow your smartphone camera* to provide detailed information about a critical measure of your heart’s health: the “left ventricular ejection fraction” (LVEF) — the amount of blood in the heart that is pumped out to the blood system with each beat. This figure is used by physicians as a base for diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.

Electricity needed to cool a Las Vegas building reduced by 21 percent in a model

September 6, 2017

Stanford University scientists have developed a high-tech mirror-like optical surface that uses “radiative sky cooling” to dramatically lower the energy required for air conditioning and refrigeration.

The system cools water (flowing through pipes connected to an air-conditioning system) without requiring electricity by radiating excess heat from water into cold space. Panels covered in specialized optical surfaces reflect about 97 percent of the sunlight while simultaneously emitting the surface’s thermal… read more

"When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.”

September 3, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Friday (Sept. 1, 2017) that the country that becomes the leader in developing artificial intelligence will be “the ruler of the world,” reports the Associated Press.

AI development “raises colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict now,” Putin said in a lecture to students, warning that “it would be strongly undesirable if someone wins a monopolist position.”

September 1, 2017

Columbia Engineering researchers have taken a key step toward atomically precise, reproducible transistors made from single molecules and operating at room temperature — a major goal in the field of molecular electronics.

The team created a two-terminal transistor with a diameter of about 0.5 nanometers and core consisting of just 14 atoms. The device can reliably switch from insulator to conductor when charge is added or removed, one electron at a time… read more

Were these powerful bursts used by an extraterrestrial civilization to power exploratory spacecraft?

August 30, 2017

Using the Green Bank radio telescope, astronomers at Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe, have detected 15 brief but powerful “fast radio bursts” (FRBs). These microwave radio pulses are from a mysterious source known as FRB 121102* in a dwarf galaxy about 3 billion light years from Earth, transmitting at record high frequencies (4 to 8 GHz),… read more

August 29, 2017

The question of how to define life is notoriously controversial. Competing definitions abound, some of which include highly specific requirements such as being composed of cells, which might… read more

Imagine storing more than 25 terabytes of data in a device the size of a U.S. quarter or British 50p coin

August 28, 2017

Scientists at the University of Manchester have developed a data-storage method that could achieve 100 times higher data density than current technologies.*

The system would allow for data servers to operate at the (relatively high) temperature of -213 °C. That could make it possible in the future for data servers to be chilled by liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) — a cooling method that is relatively cheap compared to the… read more

August 25, 2017

Netflix has announced the episode titles for “Black Mirror’s” fourth season, to premiere on the streaming service later this year: “Arkangel,” “Black Museum,” “Crocodile,” “Hang the DJ,” “Metalhead,” and “USS Callister” (an apparent Star Trek takeoff).

August 23, 2017

A radical new electronic skin monitor developed by Korean and U.S. scientists tracks heart rate, respiration, muscle movement, acceleration, and electrical activity in the heart, muscles, eyes, and brain and wirelessly transmits it to a smartphone, allowing for continuous health monitoring.

KurzweilAI has covered a number of biomedical skin-monitoring devices. This new design is noteworthy because the soft, flexible self-adhesive patch (a soft silicone material about four centimeters or 1.5… read more

August 21, 2017

Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed a radical new method of 3D-printing laboratory-grown cells that can form complex living tissues and cartilage to potentially support, repair, or augment diseased and damaged areas of the body.

Printing high-resolution living tissues is currently difficult because the cells often move within printed structures and can collapse on themselves. So the team devised a new way to produce tissues… read more